Dry Bulk Terminal gets its act together Tau Morwe drives productivity project

TERRY HUTSON
THE DRY Bulk Terminal at Richards Bay has been under the whip from clients in recent years for reasons of delivery, but recently showed what can be done when it broke a two-year record for the gross handling of coking coal.
The terminal achieved a rate of 838 tons an hour, or 20 112t per day while discharging 137 086t from the bulker Cape Providence recently. This exceeded the previous highest rate of 799t an hour set in 2002. It was the result of a major project being driven from the top in the person of Sapo chief executive Tau Morwe, which aims at improving plant reliability and productivity.
This followed a bleak period earlier in 2004 with numerous equipment breakdowns that resulted in serious delays at a time when freight rates were at an all time high.
“Tau Morwe took firm action to improve the situation,” says acting business unit manager Yunus Ismail. He said this included the appointment of a maintenance manager and additional technical staff and placing emphasis on improving the standard of preventative maintenance throughout the terminal.
“While it will take time to see the full effect of the maintenance drive, we believe that we will achieve our goals and that all our clients will experience an improvement in service delivery,” he says.